Prohibition: a documentary which gives food for thought for today

There have been a lot of talk about banning guns, soda, or the consumption of animal products that one group of people see as a vice and wants everyone to stop, stop doing or stop being. Ken Burn’s documentary, Prohibition (2011) is a look into the great social experiment of the 1920s which failed miserably. The documentary opens with a quote from Mark Twain, “Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. Fanatics will never learn that through it be written in letters of gold across the sky. It is the prohibition that makes anything precious.” The Prohibition movement began in the early days of our country. Women were at the core of the passing and repealing of the 18^th Amendment. The Volstead Act was flawed from the very beginning and doomed to fail. Prohibition, at the beginning, had the results that was hoped for, but it quickly went south and left the country with unexpected consequences. It is a lesson of why prohibition of anything just doesn’t work.

The origins of Prohibition began hundred years before the 18^th Amendment was passed and ratified. A temperance movement began to gain steam in the 1820s with the Great Protestant Awakening when alcohol was an evil that needed to be removed. The movement would demand total abstinence from everyone. Many groups would form and help drive the temperance movement into the headlines. The Washingtonian Societies were reformed alcoholic men. Susan B. Anthony and the Women’s Temperance Society would take up the cause along with women’s suffrage. In 1851, Neal Dow, the mayor of Portland, Maine petitioned to ban alcohol and a law passed on June 2, 1851 which was the first to prohibit the sale and manufacture of intoxicating beverages. All temperance bans were halted with the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-1865). After the Great Migration of 1865. The temperance movement began to stir again. Another group was the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, a powerful force which drove the idea of prohibition in the minds of Americans. A third group was the Anti-Saloon League, with its leader Howard Hyde Russell, would turn the attention of prohibition nationwide. The movement would again gain momentum as America entered World War I, as alcohol and beer, specifically, would be used as propaganda for Anti-German sentiment in the country. The 18^th Amendment was passed on August 1, 1917 and it was ratified by the states by January 16, 1919. It would go into effect in January 1920.

Women were at the center of the Prohibition movement. They were the force to help push it into law, the enforcement of the law and the force to get it repealed. I want to highlight just a few of the important women. First, Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard aka “Saint Frances” was the master strategist for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She would serve as the organization’s president from 1879 until her death in 1898. She would bring the temperance movement along with the women’s suffrage movement. Second, Carrie Nation (1846-1911) is well known for her hatchet and breaking up saloons in Kansas. While many women of the WCTU denounced her methods, her method seemed to spread as she took her crusade outside of Kansas. Third, Mabel Walker Willebrandt (1889-1963) was the most famous woman in the country who was not an actress. She became the Assistant Attorney General of the United States and she took her job very seriously. Although she personally opposed Prohibition, she would aggressively work to uphold the Volstead Act and prosecute any violators. Fourth, Pauline Sabin (1887-1955) was first a supporter of Prohibition and worked for the passing of the 18^th Amendment. However, she would change her mind when she saw the hypocrites it made of the country’s leaders. She disliked Ella Boole and the WCTU as they claimed to speak for all American women. In disgust as President Hoover would do nothing about Prohibition, she created the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform in 1929 with the sole goal of repeal.

The Volstead Act was named for Andrew Volstead, the Minnesota congressman who introduced it. It was the enforcement law for the 18^th Amendment which prohibited the manufacture, sale and transport of intoxicating liquors; however, it did not define what “intoxicating liquors’ were. The Volstead Act was conceived and drafted by Wayne Wheeler, leader of the Anti-Saloon League, and set out to define what would be considered intoxicating liquors. While the 18^th Amendment and the Volstead Act prohibited the manufacture, sale and transport of intoxicating liquors, it did not prohibit the consumption of liquors. The Act would define intoxicating liquors as beverages with more than 0.5% alcohol by volume, which took many by surprise, including many Prohibition supporters, because the understanding was that beer and wine would still be allowed. However, Wheeler wanted total prohibition and heavily influenced lawmakers to pass the Act with the strict restriction. Patented medicines which contained alcohol was still allowed as well as sacramental wines for churches and synagogues. The Volstead Act did not restrict the consumption of alcohol and all alcohol purchased before the law went into effect was allowed for home consumption. It also did not prohibit the manufacture of alcoholic beverages for home consumption. People could make their own beer, wine and other liquors if they did not sale it or transport it. That would soon change as more and more restrictions were added to the law. The “5 and 10” law would increase penalties for a first-time violation of the Volstead Act, and it made it a crime to not report violators, including your neighbors.

Prohibition was an experiment that failed. It had such unexpected consequences that many people would claim that the country was worse than it was before. Prohibition would turn millions of law-abiding citizens into law breakers. It would redefine the role of government and individual rights and responsibilities. Prohibition turned the countryside against the cities. It turned the natives against the immigrants and the question who is and who is not a real American. A question that is still being asked today. The prohibition movement became an anti-immigrant movement. The Anti-Saloon League claimed that true Americans didn’t need alcohol, only the immigrants did. It turned Protestants against Catholics. Alcohol became the scapegoat for all the failures in society. From the very beginning of Prohibition, the people fought to keep their alcohol just as fiercely as those who fought to prohibit it. Inconsistencies in the law would be exploited by many and make others most successful. Roy Olmstead was known as the King of the Puget Sound Bootleggers as he began smuggling alcohol from Canada. George Remus of Cincinnati was a successful lawyer until bootlegging made him an even bigger success. He would also memorize Prohibition regulations and devised ways around them as soon as they were issued. William McCoy was a Florida skipper who ran a very successful rum smuggling operation. Statistics have shown that Americans were actually drinking more during and after Prohibition than they ever were before the 18^th Amendment. Demand was so high for alcohol, bootleggers were starting to cut corners with deadly results. Some bootleggers were making Jamaica Ginger and wood alcohol that caused many illnesses and even deaths.

Why it doesn’t work? Bottom line is that you cannot legislate reform, that must come from within. A sentiment repeated by many throughout the program. Edwin Hunt Jr, the son of a bootlegger, said “Prohibition was the noble experiment. I think it created more problems than it solved. It brought into the country, it brought a disregard for laws. I think it turned us into a nation of scofflaws in many ways.” When you banned something, you create a demand for it. People want it simply because you told them they can’t have it. Since the 18^th Amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment on December 5, 1933, other groups have come to Congress to impose their ideas of morality and all have been defeated, in part to the memory of Prohibition and the problems it caused. The closing words of the documentary sum it up best, “If we ever become a country in which we tell the government “Tell us how to live,” then we are doomed.” America has been a country of rebels since the colonial days. It is the American spirit to stand up and say “hey, you can’t tell me what to do!” But when we allow the government to say, “We know better for your life, health and family than you do,” we are truly doomed. What is the solution to other social problems? Education and allow people to have an informed choice, hoping they chose the healthiest option but needing to accept when they don’t. A great example is soda. Yes, soda is bad for you in large quantities; but telling people they can’t have it, only drives their desire for it and they will drink more of it not knowing if it will be available in the future. By teaching moderation, people can still enjoy soda and be healthy.

In conclusion, Ken Burns has made a name for himself with amazing documentaries which dig deeper in historical events than ever before. His documentary, Prohibition, is not only a lesson in history but a lesson of current events. It is a lesson we need to understand before we go down this path again. It is a reminder that we cannot legislate morality. One group cannot dictate their version of right or wrong. If prohibition worked, then there would be no murders or any crime. The prisons would be empty, and law enforcement would be twiddling their thumbs. Prohibition was the law of unintended consequences. We need to be realistic when discussing any kind of ban, will people say, “oh well, it’s against the law now” and obey the law? Think about how many times a day you break the law. You might say, “I don’t break the law!” If you drive, I bet you do! Sometimes without realizing it and sometimes because you know you won’t get caught. I highly recommend Ken Burn’s documentary and see the similarities in today’s issues.